Let Us Escape from the Laundromat!
by handschuhmaus
Summary: Two thirds of the Golden Trio, the loony headmaster, that half-giant, a half-mad Auror, the Potions Master, and an aristocrat, trapped inside a laundromat. Acting crazily. Sound like a recipe for disaster? Indeed. Crack fic, no pairings.


_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. I don't have anything to do with the making of iPods or Apple, and I don't even own any I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. I am inordinately fond of yellow mustard, but I would never fill soap dispensers with it, so, kiddies, that's something that you should not try at home. Voldemort really isn't ever a good example._

_This fic was written for the "Strange Obsession" challenge on the HPFFC forum, and also takes some quotes from the "Funny quotes challenge" (such quotes are underlined). I chose the following obsessions:  
_

_Lucius—iPod_

_Hagrid—I Can't Believe It's not Butter_

_Dumbledore—Laundromat_

_This fic takes place in a laundromat. I've been pretty well finished with it for a while, but it's entirely possible that I will change the ending a bit later, or add an alternate ending, as I'm not quite satisfied. And quite frankly, if you were expecting sensible logic (as opposed to a dash of Wonderland style), please check your expectations at the door. It's pretty much a crack!fic._

_It is fairly clean in nature, but there is one incidence of minor language, and an incidence involving a misunderstanding of "animal husbandry". (for the record, it refers, pretty much, to the care and keeping of animals)  
_

The half-giant continued to stare into his warped tub of a yellow-ish substance, and repeated, for the umpteenth time that day, "Ah can't believe it's—"

"Yes," Harry said, irritably, "we all know you can't believe it's not butter."

"Said substance does not resemble _butter_ at all, and one would have to be a daft oaf to mistake it for the dairy spread!" the Potions Master exclaimed caustically, billowing around the Laundromat in a waft of soap-scented air.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" exclaimed Moody, as Dumbledore and Hagrid both cried out.

"What's wrong, Hagrid?" Hermione asked, looking up from her book on _The Care and Keeping of Jersey Cattle_, which seemed to be the only thing she could find to read in the Laundromat. Furthermore, she and Snape had gotten into a bitter argument over who got to _read_ the volume, as he was as eager as she for some distraction. Then Snape had attempted to wrest Malfoy's music player away from him and had not even vaguely succeeded. Harry's attempts to sleep had been thwarted by commotions like this and Hagrid's constant pronouncements of disbelief.

"He called me a daft oaf!" Hagrid sobbed into his sleeve, unintentionally letting his bedraggled beard fall into the pool of yellow oil contained in a foul smelling plastic puck that had formerly been an everyday margarine/butter-substitute container.

"No, Hagrid, I'm sorry." Professor Snape spoke in a long-suffering tone. "I merely don't understand why you keep repeating the information." And then, startled, as some silvery objects flew through the air and a tinkling noise indicated that they had hit the floor, the spy dove onto the filthy cement with instincts honed by several decades of dueling. The quarters fell to the floor around him.

"Why can't I do my laundry? Why can't I? Why can't I?" Dumbledore exclaimed, thoroughly abusing the interrobang.

"I have told you once, I've told you twice, Albus, the machines do not take Canadian quarters!" Snape exclaimed, rising from the floor angrily.

"I have _socks_ that need washing, Severus!" Dumbledore wrung his hands and then set his face in what might have been an adorable puppy-dog look on anyone else—or even on Albus Brian Wulfric Perceval Dumbledore, for that matter, _had_ he been considerably younger.

The potions master scowled and stormed at the Headmaster: "You have washed _hundreds_ of socks this morning, Albus! Twice over, too! Now can you please remove us from this infernal Laundromat?"

"No." said Dumbledore, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I can't."

Snape looked as if he were about to strangle somebody.

"Would you please help me do my laundry, Severus?" the Headmaster continued in his theme.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" bellowed Moody, and he fired a blasting hex at the window of the Laundromat, which, despite Snape's eagerly withheld breath, did not shatter, move, or perform as if subject to any effect from Moody's blasting hex. (Not that it would have helped the matter if Snape had blown at the window—as A: the Potions Master, as he will be quick to remind you, is not in any way, shape, form, or moniker, a "wolf", even if he is, perhaps, big and bad(though in actuality he is not). B: he, and, in fact wolves in general, really, do not have preternatural expiratory power, and, cannot, in fact, "huff and puff"—a technical term, by the way—so as to knock any house made of anything more stable than unattached playing cards down; and C: that sort of thing only happens in fairytales, anyhow.)

(There also needs to be a disclaimer that any connection to broken windows should not be construed as a potential reference to A: fictional French convicts from the 18th-19th centur(y/ies) or B: cautionary tales regarding economic interpretation of catastrophic events)

Equally suddenly, the formerly tranquil atmosphere was interrupted by a shrill scream.

Hagrid looked up at the ceiling, Dumbledore looked at the current washing machine, and the rest of the relatively sane occupants of the deserted Laundromat looked at Lucius Malfoy, who was, like the smashingly handsome and cool aristocrat he is, reclining in a dilapidated chair while listening to his iPod. Or… at least, that is what he _had_ been doing, up until he had let out that alarming and peculiarly feminine scream. It seemed he had tossed the earphones far away from his head, and he could not possibly hear the music that was playing—or could he?

Snape looked at Hermione. Hermione looked at Snape. Harry looked at Snape. Harry looked at Hermione, and elicited no reaction from either of them. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Professor?" asked Hermione.

"Do you hear what I hear?" Snape asked dreamily, mostly because he had discerned that Hermione was finding her compendium of cattle husbandry a rather boring read, he thought she might soon succumb to ennui, he thought he might finally have some reading material, he could hear a vague, rather high pitched noise, and he assumed that Miss Granger, being a more sensible person than most Gryffindors, had perhaps not ruined her hearing with too much loud music.

Hermione giggled because Snape had failed to realize that his comment was the title of a Christmas song.

"Never ever," Lucius Malfoy began, smoothing back his hair and speaking both as imperiously and as importantly as if he were about to impart one of the sacred truths about life, "listen to Mozart at high volumes."

"Well," growled Snape, returning to his usual foul demeanor, "the likelihood of us doing such a thing is very low indeed considering that you yourself are the only individual in this room possessed of a device capable of playing _Mozart!_"

Malfoy pouted and reinserted his earphones, holding his iPod up and apparently struggling to read the display. The three potentially sane inmates of the Laundromat turned to see Albus Dumbledore attempting to eat the washing powder and tearing up because of it.

"Albus Brian Wulfric Perceval Dumbledore!" Snape exclaimed, showing that he could rival Molly Weasley for the tone of a scolding "What _are_ you doing?"

"I've allergies, and it helps!" Dumbledore said, coughing out a cloud of white powder that seemed to have developed from the soap granules.

"Allergies to what, for heaven's sake?" Snape exclaimed, rummaging most unhelpfully in the pockets of his billowy robe.

"Allergies. You know, like dust mites, and tree pollen, and sans serif." The headmaster explained, liberally spreading the soap powder—far _**too**_ liberally—over the socks he had loaded into the machine.

"You can't be allergic to sans serif!" Hermione interjected, flabbergasted. "It's a type of font!"

Dumbledore smiled benevolently at her and then attempted to insert some lemon sherbets into the coin slots on the washing machine. He seemed to be unduly alarmed by the fact that he could not, in fact, fit the candy into the coin-shaped holes, when truly it was simply a matter of an irregularly shaped generally vaguely spherical thing not fitting into a very-short-cylinder shaped hole.

"Lolly, lolly, lolly, get your adverbs here!" Lucius Malfoy sang happily.

Moody shot a random spell at the wealthy wizard, but his aim was off and he merely succeeded in levitating a box of fabric softener sheets. Hagrid gazed mournfully into his monoun- and polyunsaturated butter-substitute and declared once more "I can't believe it's _not_ butter."

Dumbledore, who now seemed to be tone-deaf as well as completely insane, began to sing snippets of "The Candy Man" from _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_.

Harry blinked and suddenly realized that there was a pile of peanut shells on the floor. Furthermore, and even more disturbingly, Alastor "Mad-eye" Moody was reciting the words "Avada kedavra, Avada kedavra" over and over, and he did not appear to care where his wand was pointing.

"I'll thank you to leave off repeating _that_ incantation!" Snape exclaimed, and cast a light Expelliarmus on the Auror—so much for constant vigilance—as the Potions Master easily retrieved the slim wand and deposited it in his robe pocket only, to his chagrin, to have about five gloves tumble out, none of which were paired up.

"Would you like me to wash your gloves, Professor?" Hermione offered, sighing, and rising from the incredibly boring book on cows (and steers, and bulls, and calves, and any other name you care to call your cattle, other than "oreos", which simply _were_ not covered in this volume!).

Snape chewed his lip, looking greedily at the book, and also gazing at the pile of lonely gloves. He inclined his head slightly, which Hermione interpreted as a nod and so began to gather up his gloves so as to put them in the washing machine. Then he grabbed the book and said "No!"

"Yes they _do_, Severus," corrected Malfoy, but what exactly he was referring to—that is, what he believed Snape was referring to and why he felt the other man needed corrected—has been lost in the sands of time, although one does suspect he might _possibly_ have been referring to a matter of grammar.

"What's wrong, Professor?" Hermione asked nervously and then attempted to cram the gloves into the man's robe pocket only to find out that she was stuffing them through a slit in his cape. She blushed red and reached down to pick up the gloves only to fall over and knock the Potions Master down as well. He grabbed at a chair, but his effort was expended in futility, and he fell, hard, right onto the concrete floor—you really could _not_ blame him for mouthing several four letter words, although quite strictly, they were only four-letter words in the technical sense, and Malfoy, who would have never permitted a fellow Slytherin to curse in mixed company—or maybe he would, considering that Hermione was only a Gryffindor and a Muggleborn to boot—was not moved to censure.

"I do not wish my hair washed!" pronounced Snape indignantly, and then realized that he had not said what he had intended to, as he had intended to refer to the tendency of wool gloves, when in the presence of heat, moisture, and agitation, to full and, simultaneously, his doubts that the Gryffindors knew how to properly wash his gloves. However, in reflection, his mood was lightened by the fact that he had not said, for instance, "I do not wish for you to wash my _" because that would have actually involved the revolting idea of his having _considered_ Miss Granger washing his hair.

"No, your gloves," said Hermione sadly. "And you can have the book. It's rather boring, really." The professor opened the book at this comment, and his expression went from sullen and severe to appalled.

"What sort of idiot writes two bloody loquacious pages defining the meaning of the word 'maize'? And what does that have to do with cattle, anyway?" he demanded.

"How should I know?" Harry asked, having been thoroughly distracted from his mysterious peanut shells, and exhaustedly buried his head in his robes and leaned down on the table.

"Why _isn't_ it butter?" Hagrid asked, inducing Snape and Hermione to look at him, aghast.

"Can't we do magic here, professor?" Hermione asked suddenly in a flash of inspiration, addressing Snape, who, apparently surprised, dropped the text on his toes. However, Dumbledore, who was now rather green in the face from his soap-eating experiment, seemed to believe she was addressing him, and gave her a rather eerie smile, considering that his beard and lips seemed to be caked with a mixture of cherry Chap Stick and detergent. Snape began to rummage through his pockets again, but fell into the same trap as Hermione and tried to retrieve something from the nothing at all within the slit in his cloak.

"Yes, I believe we can do magic here, but that's not nearly so entertaining!" Dumbledore exclaimed, pouring fabric softener into the washing machine in far too great a quantities. Had the laundry chemicals been intoxicating beverages, the washing machine would now be thoroughly sloshed.

"You are going to ruin your socks," Snape pointed out, finally finding a rather crumbly bezoar stashed in the pocket of his robe.

"What do you mean; I'm going to ruin my socks?" Dumbledore asked indignantly, attempting once more to insert lemon drops into the coin slots.

"Even I, who have never done laundry before, know that one doesn't dump nearly a kilo of detergent and a liter of fabric softener in the wash!" Snape exclaimed. "And you will never succeed in getting the machine to accept your candy as a currency! It only accepts quarters!"

"Why does the machine only accept American money?" asked Moody suddenly, and then screeched "Constant Vigilance!" and waved a pen at the vending machine.

Hagrid followed the Auror's line of sight from the pen to the vending machine and then finally rose from his seat, dripping vegetable oil on the already filthy floor, to make his way over to the vending machine, where he laboriously retrieved several coins from his pockets and coaxed the machine to dispense a small orange plastic packet. "Does anyone like… Reese's Pieces?" the half-giant inquired.

"Furthermore," Snape said, continuing his earlier commentary, "you are going to poison yourself if you continue eating _detergent_! I didn't think you were that **insane!**"

Harry had, in the meantime, managed to almost fall asleep when his journey to the land of Nod (that is, his process of falling asleep) was interrupted by sudden visions involving a picture of a unicorn with a pistol in its mouth, Wormtail slurping an enormous coffee drink, and Bellatrix Lestrange cackling madly. And worse, they were headed towards the Laundromat.

"The British are coming! The British are coming!" Harry exclaimed, rising from his seat in a panic, only to be offered a giant hand full of orange, brown, and yellow candies. Hagrid gave him an encouraging but confused smile.

Snape turned, his cape billowing out behind him, and bezoar dust leaking from his hand where he was fervently gripping the bezoar."Potter."

"Yes…?"

"We _**ARE**_ British." The Potions master fumed, and then stuffed the now somewhat crumbled bezoar into the mouth of Albus Dumbledore. Unbelievably, the Headmaster found the bezoar easier to choke on than the detergent and began coughing violently. Malfoy, clearly alarmed, even though he was singing, off-key, along with "Slow Hands", rose from his chair rapidly and gestured for Snape to perform the Heimlich maneuver. This, however, was misinterpreted by the two students as Malfoy foolishly punching himself in the stomach for unknown reasons. The other Slytherin understood the gesture but was uneasy about performing the maneuver on the Headmaster, and, regardless of the proximity of a chair of the perfect height, Dumbledore did not appear to be interested in violently slamming his abdomen into a wooden slat.

After thirty seconds of coughing, Hagrid rushed over, and, in a shower of candies, tried to perform the potentially life-saving maneuver on the headmaster although none of them could really say whether his face was green because of his earlier soap consumption or because he was deprived of oxygen, although Hermione privately thought that someone turning green because they were choking was extremely unlikely. Unfortunately, the large man had whacked Dumbledore in the sternum rather than in a useful area.

Malfoy shook his head and laughed sourly, gesturing at the proper location for the fists when performing the Heimlich, but because Malfoy's form was utterly concealed by his robes, no one could tell whether he intended just beneath the rib cage or the navel area.

Scowling, Severus Snape flung his arms around the headmaster and forcefully thrust his fists into Dumbledore's naval region in a textbook performance of the Heimlich maneuver. The headmaster spat out the bezoar just as the rather flimsy door of the Laundromat was flung open. This did not, however, have the desired theatrical effect, because the door was, incongruously, one of those metal doors with a screened window in its upper region, despite being installed in the middle of rather dirty glass pane windows that allowed for an unnecessarily panoramic view of a boring suburb.

The door was opened once again, and Wormtail, sucking down the last of his fancy and extremely sweet coffee drink, allowed Voldemort to enter. They were not accompanied by Bellatrix. Startled, Snape hurriedly moved away from the Headmaster, leaving the foolish looking old man standing beside a "Banana Phone" singing Lucius Malfoy.

The Ruler of Darkness raised a nonexistent eyebrow at the sight, and Malfoy hurriedly pressed a button on his iPod. Unfortunately, when he was apparently unsatisfied with the next song as well, he managed to scroll the volume to 100% rather than (or perhaps in addition to?) depressing the appropriate region, and as he flung the earphones from his person, the Laundromat's denizens were treated to the tinny strains of "Istanbul not Constantinople".

"You know," Voldemort said conversationally, as his robes bellowed satisfactorily in a draught from the door, which was retracting in a manner that might be a slam had the door been anything besides flimsy metal "…isn't it just odd the way everyone assumes the goo in soap dispensers is actually hand soap?"

"I fail to see how that is the least bit odd, my lord." Snape said, inclining his head respectfully.

"In fact, I like to fill mine with mustard, just to teach people a lesson in trust." Voldemort continued.

"Are we… likely to come in contact with your soap dispensers, sir?" Hermione asked. Had she not been in the rather confusing situation of being locked in the Laundromat with a grumpy potions professor, Harry, and three potentially insane adults only to find He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named walking in and discussing soap dispensers, she probably would have screamed and most certainly would not have addressed the man that was formerly Tom Marvolo Riddle in such a manner.

"Why wouldn't you?" the dark wizard asked indignantly, in a rather squeaky voice. "Do _**you**_ wash your hands, Granger?" he bellowed, performing an unintentionally comical pose in which he raised his hands as if they were claws to prey upon her.

"But with _your_ soap dispensers?" Hermione asked, suppressing the urge to point out that filling soap dispensers with mustard would rather defeat the purpose of soap, even if vinegar and salt did have _some_ vaguely antibacterial qualities, as the condiment simply did not have the properties of a detergent.

"There is nothing wrong with my soap dispensers!" the dark wizard pronounced, growing even more indignant. "Besides, you're a Mudblood, what is there to offend you about my soap dispensers?"

"The fact that they're filled with mustard?" Hermione ventured.

Ignoring the girl's explanation, Voldemort continued in his theme. "Just because my father was a filthy Muggle—and I didn't ask for him to be—doesn't mean that you are allowed to go around with _germs_ on your hands!"

"Gee-whiz." Harry said, sarcastically, "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"_Saccharomyces!*_" Voldemort replied, vaguely waving his wand at his sworn enemy. Nothing, to their astonishment, happened whatsoever.

"Doesn't having mustard in your soap dispensers interfere with the purpose of having soap dispensers, my lord?" Snape asked in a soft voice, casting a sympathetic gaze on Hermione (that is, he looked at her nicely, only phrased far better than that explanation—he did not cast a spell called "sympathetic gaze" on Hermione—that would be really silly, like writing in the dust on the floor with garlic, or trying to use a potion of monster detection to fight off an angry orangutan†.)

"Arrooooo!" howled Lucius‡, and Voldemort glared at him until he muted the iPod and removed the ear buds, giving an embarrassed grin to the occupants of the room.

"As I was saying," continued Voldemort, "whether you are wizard, or, indeed, Muggle, hygiene is extremely important—" he stopped talking because he was sniffing the air, which, did, indeed, smell of perfume.

Malfoy sighed and, reinserting his earbuds, resumed listening to his iPod. In fact, he was now mumbling along, off-key, what seemed to be meant to be the lyrics to "Blinded by the Light". Dumbledore, likewise, resumed his attempts to pay for his horrendous miscarriage of a laundry load with lemon flavored confections.

Pettigrew, tossing his empty plastic cup into a presently empty dryer, walked over toward Lucius and proudly informed him "Haikus are easy. But sometimes they don't make sense. Refrigerator."

The Slytherin wizard scowled and skipped to the next song on his playlist, only Pettigrew, in an ill-advised attempt to better Snape at the purpose of seizing Lucius Malfoy's iPod, turned the volume on high in the ensuing scuffle, and they were treated to a distorted, repetitious recitation of the words "Captain Jean Picard, USS Enterprise".

Although Hermione and Harry were intently watching Malfoy's snake-headed cane, working on the assumption that, as according to rumor, his wand was concealed within, he drew a slim wand which Ollivander might have called "whippy" out of his sleeve, pointed it at Pettigrew, opened his mouth, and exclaimed "HARRY POTTER?", looking wide-eyed and horrified at The-Boy-Who-Lived.

"He was left an orphan at one!" Moody exclaimed indignantly, glaring at Malfoy, who, startled, scrambled to turn off the iPod.

"More like fifteen months," muttered Snape.

"Why in the wee hours of the morning? Why in the name of all things clean, would someone leave an orphan for my arch-enemy? What sort of sense does that make? He's not old enough to raise a child, and I don't intend to allow him to become old enough to raise one!" Voldemort shrieked. "And, furthermore, he befriends a Mudblood who refuse to use my soap dispensers!"

"But you said they're filled with mustard!" Hermione and Severus exclaimed simultaneously. "And if this is your Laundromat," she continued on her own, "why is the only book-"

Snape cut her off but continued the inquiry "this banal volume on cow husbandry, which—"

He, in turn, was interrupted by overacted gagging noises from Pettigrew, who fell to the floor, and, pale, muttered up at Malfoy, "Snivellus is just the sort of person to want to read about cows," before fainting and being liberally sprinkled with soap powder by a gleeful Dumbledore.

The Professor only momentarily winced before quickly composing himself and completing his dependant clause—"is of no practical value to wizards. If this is your Laundromat, why didn't you populate it with a book on—"

Hermione jumped in, suggesting what she was sure he was about to say "Potions,"

"Calculus,"

"Transfiguration,"

"Geometry,"

" Even Divination!"

"Trigonometry, for heavens' sakes!"

"Are you insinuating that I own a Laundromat?" asked Voldemort, curiously, ignoring the bibliophiles' outburst over the library or lack thereof in said Laundromat. Midway through this conversation, Malfoy's fingers began twitching and he took up his iPod again.

"That is what you seemed to be suggesting."

"Hmm. No, I don't believe I do. I never saw any reason to run a Laundromat. I mean, it's not as if I'm laundering money all the time." The arch-nemesis of Harry Potter commented, as if the suggestion were nonsensical.

"_Are_ you a counterfeiter, in addition to all your other heinous crimes?" Harry asked, incredulously.

The Dark Wizard stepped forth menacingly, but he was guilty of the presumption, as most people are, that there will not be random piles of peanut shells on the floor of the Laundromat you happened to go into this morning, and therefore slipped and fell to his knees in front of Harry Potter.

There was a great honking noise as of someone blowing their nose, and then the sound of a washing machine engaging, as if Dumbledore had finally found some proper currency.

"Awww!" exclaimed Hagrid. "'E's going ta ask f'r f'rgiveness from 'Arry, and it'll all be 'appiness and rainbows!" He was crying happy tears into a titanic handkerchief.

Voldemort appeared embarrassed, and resumed a vertical posture, bending only to brush peanut shells off his robes, where, it seemed, they were peculiarly stuck.

Snape appeared to be tickled about something. "What, my lord, may I ask, leads you to the assumption that a Laundromat would be an ideal location for laundering money?"

"Doesn't the name naturally lead to that conclusion?" Voldemort looked up from the tedious task of forcefully removing peanut shells from his robes.

"Er, to launder money is to make it appear legal, but a Laundromat is for the purpose of doing laundry." Hermione explained.

"Exactly." said Voldemort, failing miserably to spot the error in his train of thought. "Now I would just like to know why you can't be sensible about MY SOAP DISPENSERS?"

"No, for laundering clothes."

"My soap dispensers are there to wash your hands, young lady! Don't fool around with me!" he rejoined, doing an amazingly good impression of the cantankerous old curmudgeon.

"But the Laundromat is for clothes!" Hermione explained.

"I can't believe this!" Voldemort complained indignantly to Snape. "I am actually arguing with a Mudblood about her ignorance regarding soap dispensers, and Lucius is listening to some song about swordplay." The latter, was, in fact, sort of true, inasmuch as it was a misinterpretation of the lyrics that Lucius was singing and which the commenter could scarcely make out.

Said Malfoy sang, "Flash, slash, glisten and gash!" whilst smiling.

"My liege," said Snape slowly, "please do listen to this, as I don't wish to repeat it: Putting mustard, which is a condiment made from mustard seeds, salt, vinegar, often turmeric, and probably a few other things, in a soap dispenser, expressly defeats the purpose of a soap dispenser, namely, to supply detergent for the purpose of cleaning one's hands."

Voldemort did not appear to have paid any attention whatsoever to this pronouncement, despite Snape's plea, and gave a maniacal laugh. "Now I have that I have trapped Harry Potter and his Mudblooded friend and that old fart of a Headmaster in this _Laundromat_, I can now proceed to execute my deliciously evil plan."

"Are you going to replace all the butter in the world with 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter'?" Hagrid asked, worriedly.

"No!" shrieked The-Wizard-Formerly-Known-As-Tom-Marvolo-Riddle (Although this nickname unfortunately infuriated its owner, was entirely too long for common use, and was determined to infringe on the rights of some other person's use of the formulaic The-role-formerly-known-as-name by a wizarding court and therefore cannot be used outside of certain fics like this one) "that isn't deliciously evil whatsoever! That's just minor evil, like going around tying people's shoelaces together! And nobody respects a Dark Wizard who does that."

"Are you a synesthetic?" Hermione asked, curiously.

"What?" exclaimed he indignantly.

"Otherwise I fail to really see how evil could have any taste whatsoever, let alone a delicious one." She explained.

Voldemort shook his head, and waved his wand at Hermione, casting a spell that, rather inadvisably and pointlessly, made her clothing edible. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—"ignoring the fact that he had actually stopped speaking previously and had not in fact been interrupted at all, "—I and my fellow pureblooded Death Eaters are going to, ah…" he seemed to be lost for words.

"You're not pureblooded!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Yes," said Snape gravely, "there does seem to be a fundamental logical error in that sentence, as it contains the presuppositions that the speaker _is_ a pureblooded Death Eater, and that there is more than one other pureblooded Death Eater present, neither of which are correct."

"That's not an error of logic. That's just means the statement is false." The student argued, and Harry groaned, having no patience for arguments of logic.

"And who," said Voldemort, jumping rapidly back to an earlier topic of conversation, "just what kind of miserable person, leaves an _orphan_ **anywhere** at one o'clock in the morning, let alone with the Boy-Who-Survived-My-Killing-Curse?"

"Oh NOOOOOH!" screamed Albus Dumbledore, as the washing machine began to rock violently and spew out suds. (Although some parties find it necessary for the author to inform the reader that he was in no way referring to any type of theatrical drama.)

"Come, Pettigrew! I intend to save this orphan, and, for that, I will not be releasing you from the Laundromat any time soon!" the Dark Wizard exclaimed, and opened the door to leave. He noticed Pettigrew's position on the floor but nevertheless proceeded out.

Harry shot a calming spell at the washing machine, but this only resulted in its beginning to recite something odd in a guttural voice: "Wir Wiener Waschweiber würden weisse Wäsche waschen, wenn wir wüssten wo warmes, weiches Wasser wäre. Warmes weiches Wasser wissen wir, weisse Wäsche waschen wir."

"What is that?" asked Dumbledore, concernedly.

"It's a tongue-twister about Viennese washerwomen," Snape noted wryly.

"_What_ did you do to the washing machine?" Lucius Malfoy inquired angrily and not entirely without a noticeable tone of hysteria. He turned off the iPod and pocketed it.

Panicking, Moody and Harry shot Blasting Curses at the building, but the only result was Snape glaring at them. "Ask yourselves this; was it a truly inspired, _wise_ idea, to take down the building when you are within it?"

"_Alohomora?"_ Hermione cast at the door with a questioning tone, yet nothing happened.

"Perhaps you should have tried this," Snape rejoined, almost insanely gleeful in his triumph over their Gryffindor lack of logic. "_Finite Incantatem!"_

In the aftermath of this misadventure, Dumbledore confided to his employee, "I think you were correct. It seems I have ruined my socks."

* * *

*The genus of common bread yeast.

†The ancient freesource game NetHack, which is quite fun and makes reference to LoTR and the first couple of Discworld books, refuses to allow you to write on the floor with your clove of garlic, citing as the reason the fact that it "would get too dirty", but it will, although doing so is of questionable wisdom, allow you to wield a potion of monster detection as your weapon if you possess such a thing. It is of especially dubious value if you have angered the Librarian by calling him a monkey.

‡ Lucius was now listening to "Werewolves of London". The complete playlist? Your favorite Mozart (I like Exsultate Jubilate or the Requiem although they are both vocal church pieces. Eine Klein Nachtmusik (A little night music) is also a famous instrumental piece, and all three are on my intro-to-Mozart CD), "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here" (The Schoolhouse Rock take on adverbs), a few more pieces from _Grammar Rock_, "Slow Hands" by Interpol, "Banana Phone" by Raffi, insert-your-favorite-annoying-pop-song, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" has been performed by They Might Be Giants, "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon, "Blinded by the Light"—we'll say Manfred Mann and his Earth Band with the seven minute version, "The Picard Song" by DarkMateria, "The Rake's Song" of the Decembrists, "Madame Guillotine" from The Scarlet Pimpernel, and "Shadowplay" by the Killers.


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